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Most Americans take the water systems that bring clean water to and from their homes and businesses for granted. They turn on the tap and flush the toilet without thinking twice about where that water came from or where it will go.

But could you imagine a day without water? Without safe, reliable water and wastewater service?

A Day Without Water = Crisis

A day without water means no water comes out of your tap to brush your teeth. When you flush the toilet, nothing happens. Firefighters have no water to put out fires; farmers couldn’t water their crops; and doctors couldn’t wash their hands. A single nationwide day without water service would put $43.5 billion of economic activity at risk. In just eight days, a national water service stoppage would put nearly 2 million jobs in jeopardy.

A day without water is nothing short of a humanitarian, political, and economic crisis.

While unimaginable for most of us, there are communities that have lived without water. From man-made tragedies in Flint, Michigan, to water scarcity issues in Central California, to wastewater runoff in the Great Lakes, water issues abound. There are millions of Americans living in communities that never had the infrastructure to provide safe water service, relying on bottled water and septic systems each day.

America can do better.

The problems that face our drinking water and wastewater systems are multi-faceted. The infrastructure is aging and in need of investment, having gone underfunded for decades. Drought, flooding, and climate change stress water and wastewater systems. Although these regional challenges will require locally-driven solutions, reinvestment in our water must be a national priority.